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It Has Nothing To Do With Age provides self-help principles. The inspirational stories give concrete illustrations of overcoming many of life's challenges. Difficulties pertaining to depression, grief, divorce, and death are presented and worked through by the participants. Physical impairments, injuries, overcoming issues with weight, alcohol, and nicotine are also dealt with and resolved by the athletes.

This book provides a model on how to overcome some of the difficulties that confront all of us . Further, this read sheds a beacon of light on preventive measures for good physical and mental health. Research demonstrates that exercise is an important component in treating such ailments and debilitating illness such as depression, stroke, heart disease, brain or cognitive malfunction,and Alzheimer's disease.

I suggest that proper exercise can be used as a preventive measure for psychological, cognitive, and physical health as well. Follow my prescription and lead a better, more fulfilling, and healthier life.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Sleep Deprivation and Learning

"Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric."– Bertrand Russell
Recently, a research study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine reported that inadequate sleep hurts the ability of fat cells to respond to insulin effectively. This is not good news for obese individuals and those that have diabetes. Fat cells generally safely store lipids.
However when the cells failed to adequately respond to insulin, lipids can spill out into the bloodstream and the surrounding tissue. According to Matthew Brady, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Chicago and a co-author of the study stated: “if you’re cramming for finals or have a newborn in the house, getting 4 ½ hours of sleep isn’t unusual. Yet, after just four nights it is the equivalent of metabolically aging 10 to 20 years.”
Sleep deprivation has also been shown to reduce attention, slow reaction times and impair learning. This study shows that sleep deprivation can be also harmful to metabolism as well. These researchers are now planning a similar study looking to see if lengthening sleep time in obese and middle-age people with sleep apnea can improve the state of those people’s fat cells. In this study healthy people were made to look worse with sleep deprivation and now they’re go take a look to see if improving sleep could have a beneficial effect. For more information consult the October 16, 2012 edition of the Wall Street Journal.

Unfortunately, something is going on as far as learning and achievement in education is concerned and it’s not good. Likely, the problems of these mediocre test scores reflect the combination or interaction between the learner, the teacher, the educational philosophy, and the parents and the culture. It seems apparent that sleep deprivation is also variable and that it can be dealt with if recognized.   It’s too bad that there is not more emphasis on solving or recognizing this as a problem.  Are you and your kids getting enough sleep?  
We also know that the problem of lack of sleep is a major problem in this country not only for teens but for adults as well. Our next  blog will have additional information about the magnitude of this issue in our country.
Don’t forget to keep moving.
Posted by Frank at 9:37 AM

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